Located close to home in Centreville, KORUS Festival, shortened as Kfest, is a popular festival celebrating both traditional and contemporary Korean culture, held by the Korean American Association of Washington Metropolitan Area. These themes are highlighted in performances which feature traditional Korean dancing as well as K-pop dance covers, and guest groups performing. The drizzly weekend of Sept. 20-23 wasn’t enough to stop the attendees and audience members in the crowd brought along tents and umbrellas.
“There are performances that celebrate Korean culture, like traditional dancing, and there’s a lot of people, festival food, teriyaki, and those fish shaped yummy things,” junior Joy Zhang said. “There’s a gentleman dance this year, PSY’s Gentleman, performed by Ballock flash mob. I heard Hello Venus is going to perform, but really it’s just food and entertainment and it’s going to be at Bull Run Park.”
The 11th annual Kfest theme this year was “DISCOVER KOREA”, and the event was centered around taking part in Korean culture. This was highlighted through Korean drumming performances and also traditional dances. A popular feature of the events is the K-pop dance covers. This year, a group danced to PSY’s Gentleman and also GoGo’s Dokdo.
“Through almost three months of practice on one song, I still managed to mess up at least once during each performance out of the seven,” Ballock dance group member Adam Sheey said.
Other fun activities include going around the outdoor booths with vendors selling a variety of items and food. Kimchi is a large part of the festival and is a staple of the Korean diet and also the concerts featured local taekwondo, the new K-pop girl group Hello Venus, a youth orchestra, singing contest, and also line dancing shows. The wide array of entertainment illustrates the different aspects of Korean culture.
Korus Festival 2013 was held annually on Sept. 20-22 at Bull Run Park in Centreville and featured a variety of activities celebrating Korean culture. Events included songs by K-pop group Hello Venus and also performances of traditional and contemporary dances such as a flash mob show of PSY’s Gentleman and other covers of K-pop dances.
